Kings goalie Jonathan Quick dives to make a save during the Kings' 2-0 victory over San Jose in Game 1 Tuesday night. KEVIN SULLIVAN, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

LOS ANGELES Instant Kings fans don’t realize what they’re watching.

They don’t remember the days, or years, when the blue paint in front of the goaltender was a welcome mat. They don’t remember Barry Brust and Roman Cechmanek and Daniel Berthiaume and Yutaka Fukufuji. They don’t remember when the goalie was a vacuum, not the current vacuum cleaner.

Real Kings fans do. There was a famous sequence on one season’s highlight film when Gary Laskoski made a sensational save, and then the narrator, referring to the opposing skater, said, “He was going for his fourth goal of the game!”

The goalie now doesn’t give up four a game. On Tuesday night he gave up none. Jonathan Quick rose up amid the Kings’ inertia to confront the San Jose Sharks in the first period, and was no less diligent the rest of the way, as the Kings won Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinals, 2-0.

“We can do a lot of things better,” Quick said, a sentiment Coach Darryl Sutter is sure to echo in today’s practice. But I think we got better as we went along.”

What can they do better?

“I think Coach might be able that one a little bit better,” said Quick, with a knowing grin. “Everyone has a lot of work to do, including myself.”

Slava Voynov’s goal at the end of the first period, and his drive that bounced off Mike Richards and past Antti Niemi in the second period, carried the Kings to their fifth consecutive victory overall and their 11th consecutive victory at home.

The Sharks outshot L.A., 35-20, and that was not a deceptive stat. Quick had to stand up against Brent Burns a couple of times, Logan Couture a couple of others, Joe Pavelski, Scott Gomez, nearly everybody the Sharks could throw into the breach.

He never cracked, but then he has given up just 10 playoff goals in 213 shots on goal.

“He was tough, but we could have made it tougher on him,” said Couture. “We need to be committed to beating our man out of the corner and then get traffic set up. We can’t let him get out of the blue like that and make saves, like he did all night.”

The only complication for the Kings was an undisclosed injury to Jarret Stoll, after he was charged by the ever-malevolent Raffi Torres. Stoll did not play in the third period.

The initial minutes revealed that the Sharks had made better use of their six-night layoff than the Kings had of their three-night hiatus. They gathered repeatedly in the L.A. zone and challenged Quick from all angles.

But, as always, Quick swatted away or gathered in everything, and the Kings eventually worked their way back into the game. Then Voynov found himself with the puck at the right point and with a half-dozen players gathered around Niemi’s net. Nothing to do but shoot, and he did, for his third goal of the playoffs and a 1-0 lead with 12 seconds left in the first period.

“The first part of the first period we were good, then they pushed back,” Couture said. “We would have liked to get one goal there before that intermission.”

“You can have all the good looks you want,” Sharks coach Todd McLellan said. “You have to find ways to finish. I just spent six days reviewing their (Kings’) St. Louis series and heard the same thing out of their mouths. They said they had a lot of chances. We can’t be that team.”

For years the Sharks were the biggest traffic problem the Kings had in the division standings. Detroit has 22 consecutive playoff appearances, but San Jose is next in the NHL with eight.

In 2011 the Sharks won three playoff games at Staples en route to a six-game victory.

“At least it’s a rivalry now,” Dustin Brown said with a grin. “They smoked us for years.”

This year the Sharks sprinted out to seven consecutive victories and converted 12 of their first 32 power plays.

But, beginning in late March, they made deals that shipped defenseman Douglas Murray, center Michal Handzus and abrasive winger Ryan Clowe. This allowed McLellan to quicken up the roster, move Burns up from defense, and San Jose finished the regular season on a 12-5-1 climb.

Then San Jose swept Vancouver in the first round.

“At times people get drawn into the other (rougher) kind of game,” McLellan said. “We want guys to stay in their own element, not chase the trend of the game.”

The trend really hasn’t changed in a year: A blue dead end, without red illumination.

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